Following speculation about the graphics card vendor ATI and a free Linux driver, a company representative has now confirmed that ATI will be placing the specifications of the R500 under an NDA.

Initially, there were rumors that ATI was planning new, proprietary drivers that promised considerable speed advantages. Just a short time later, an AMD spokesperson confirmed that the R500 graphics chip specification and Open Source libraries were being released to kernel developers under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). ATI owners AMD are also revealing the basics of the driver. A working 2D driver should be available around the end of this year, although 3D support will take slightly longer.

Shortly after AMD acquired ATI for US$ 5.4 billion in October 2006 there were various rumors about an open driver for the graphics cards.

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AMD has put its money where its mouth is, and published the first free Linux drivers for its ATI R500 and R600 graphics cards in collaboration with Novell. After a lengthy break, Nvidia has also released a new version of its proprietary graphics driver.

Andy Ritger, NVIDIA manager responsible for the Linux graphics cards, as announced on the X.org mailing list that the graphics chip company will no longer develop the open source 2D video drivers for its chips. He recommends using the VESA X driver instead.

ATI graphics cards have become more and more interesting for Linux developers ever since the manufacture released the sources. The latest drive has released power management functions that have previously been neglected on Linux.